


Trade-Off

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: sentinel_thurs, Gen, Sentinel Thursday, TSbyBS angst, missing scene: TSbyBS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-14
Updated: 2011-10-14
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18919054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: A missing scene from TSbyBS.





	Trade-Off

**Author's Note:**

> written for Sentinel Thursday challenge 407 - television

The nurse finishes adjusting the IV that Jim knows damn well is a waste of the insurance company's money and leaves Jim in peace, finally. He clamps his jaw down on the urge to hit the call button and tell her to forget it, to bring him whatever discharge papers he needs to sign and give his bed to somebody who really needs it. Any other day in his life, he wouldn't have let all this hospital crap get this far, not for something this minor, not when he could be stretched out on the couch in the privacy and relative quiet of his own home, recuperating just as easily there as here.

It's Sandburg's fault that this isn't any other day in his life.

Jim sighs. At least his control is hanging in there, more or less. Sounds he'd prefer not to be hearing keep bleeding into his awareness, but the nerves in Jim's leg are staying quiet, and Jim's tired enough after this day, this fucking _week_ , to be willing to trade random flares of hospital noise for a steady absence of pain.

The real hell of it is that he doesn't need to be here; the bullet didn't do that much damage, even if it hurts like a son of a bitch if he lets his dials slip.

A baby wails somewhere; a Code Blue gets called somewhere else, farther away. Somebody asks a nurse for a bedpan. Jim looks at the clock and sighs again. It's going to be a long evening and a longer night. 

The TV remote nudges his hip as he shifts position a little on the lumpy mattress and Jim picks it up. Maybe there's a game on, or a decent action movie. Or maybe there's —

He puts the remote down. Maybe he's seen more than enough TV already today. 

Goddammit. Sandburg should've argued with him in the ER, given Jim something to fight back against. He should've bitched and moaned about Jim's intention to get the hell out of the hospital as soon as the nurse finished bandaging his leg; tried to coax Jim or con him into letting himself be admitted like a good little patient. What Blair shouldn't have done was say, so goddamned tentatively, "Maybe you should stay overnight, man," then just stand there with that same fucking expression on his face from earlier today, like he didn't have the right to even have an opinion anymore, like maybe he'd never had the right. Since when didn't Blair _know_ he had the right, know it and fucking jump all over it?

Somebody groans in pain, long and drawn-out, the sound echoing. Snatches of conversation float in and out of Jim's hearing. _"Mama looked good, didn't she? Didn't you think she looked good?" "— spiking a fever. I've got a call in to Dr. Hirano..." "I told him he was going to have a heart attack; I told him, but does he listen to me? He never listens to anything I —"_ TV noises take over abruptly: a channel surfer in a room somewhere below Jim's floor who isn't giving any show more than three seconds' worth of a chance, a home shopping channel, the canned laughter of a sitcom. Sports scores. _"American Express. Don't leave home without it." "— fraudulent. Looking back, I can say that it's a good piece of fiction. I apologize for —"_

The bullet didn't do that much damage. Still, it hurts like a son of a bitch when Jim lets his dials slip.


End file.
